I agree and some of the biggest offenders are law enforcement and government.
Most police, (Sheriffs, city, state) now have laptops mounted on their consoles for data look ups of traffic stops etc. Plus they all have cell phones (A lot down here push to talk) and I see these folks constantly talking on the phone while driving.
Yesterday while driving home from a meeting, I got off the interstate, and was almost cut off by a silver car with government (GSA) plates. As I looked over the idiot was talking on the cell phone while driving.
I get after my wife all the time for calling me while she knows I am on the road. (MY blue tooth does not work.)
Stewart At 06:54 AM 1/27/2010, you wrote:
Yesterday afternoon, as a passenger in a car on westbound Route 66 nearing an exit to Manassas, Virginia, we were passing a minivan when I saw yet another example of why mobile computing, and I include cell phones in that category, must be banned. A guy was driving that van at about 60 mph in heavy rush hour traffic as he was working on his laptop computer. This male idiot driver, and not the first one I have seen doing this, who somehow had this laptop mounted to his right and high enough so that I could easily see the screen, was busily working the keyboard while steering with his left hand that was simultaneously clutching his cell phone. I am guessing that he would cease his computer activity and begin steering with his right hand were his cell phone to ring. As we were nearing this guy on the roadway It was the constant looking off to his right and the weaving about that initially caught my attention as well as the attention of the driver of the car I was in. A likely killer was obviously on the loose. What is wrong with people like this? What mental illness are they suffering from? And, for whatever it is worth, I think it is well past time to stop regarding cell phones as being differentiated from computers, especially when it comes to using them while driving. Most cell phones that drivers just cannot seem to put aside are, in fact, portable computers. Drivers talk on these so called cell phones, they send and receive text messages, they watch videos, they play games, they cruise the internet, look at and take photos and do just about anything else that you might normally do on your home computer, and they are doing these things while they are driving. These devices are not phones, they are computers, and in areas other than their size they bear far more resemblance to computers than they do to telephones. We tend to be aghast when drivers use computers while operating a vehicle, yet we tend to give them a pass if they are using their cell phones to perform the same functions under the same circumstances. Why? i'm just getting mad as hell at these idiots and it is getting worse every day with each new function that gets added to the arsenal available in "cell phones." I do not wish to become one of the victims of these "Type A" people, and nor do I wish that fate upon anyone else. Steve
************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
